Powder River Read Free Page B

somber face and in Ellen’s red, swollen eyes. Rose was dead. When he climbed down from the bench, Dixon’s legs buckled and he fell to his knees in the dirt.
    Later, he stood before his wife’s body lying on the bed they had shared. Her skin was white, and when he touched her face it was cold. Could this lifeless apparition really be Rose? he thought, his beautiful, laughing Rose? Dixon did not speak to her, and he did not cry. He felt nothing at all, other than a mild, unformed curiosity about the distant sound of infants crying.
    Story entered the dark room and stood at Dixon’s side. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” he said. “Rose was a fine woman. None better. When Billy came for us, I couldn’t hardly believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.” He folded his thick arms across his chest. “Yes, it’s a hard thing, and I grieve for you, but you got three little children counting on you now. Those twins, they aren’t strong, especially the boy. He don’t weigh much as a five-pound bag of coffee. The girl’s bigger, but they’re going to need care. You got to think about that.”
    Dixon gave no sign of hearing. He was trying to understand what he had done to bring this curse down on the women who were unfortunate enough to love him. For the second time in his thirty years, he found himself a widower. He had killed his first wife, Laura, and their daughter, Mary, by afflicting them with a disease he brought home from the war. Their deaths could have been avoided—he was a physician, he knew what to do—but he was too selfish and in too much of a hurry to take the proper precautions. Now Rose was gone, and her death, too, he should have prevented.
    â€œI suspected she might be carrying two,” he said, more to himself than to Story. “She was too big, I saw that, and twins most always come early. I shouldn’t have left her alone, but I wanted those horses.”
    â€œDon’t blame yourself, man,” Story said. “There’s no call for—”
    Dixon did not let him finish. “Get those horses out of my sight or I’ll kill them, I swear it. Take them back to Burgess tonight.”
    â€œI will, Dan, I will.” Story reached out and touched his friend’s arm, unnerved by his strangeness and talk of killing. “Just calm down, for God’s sake.”
    All through the night Dixon sat by the bed, holding Rose’s hand, showing no interest in the twins or even Harry. For two days he remained at her side, not eating and not sleeping. At the funeral he was stone faced and dry eyed. Ellen Story stayed on at the ranch for the next week to care for the children and keep house, but even her kind ministrations and attempts to reach him failed. Dixon sank deeper into his solitary darkness.
    â€œI’m not sure he even knows I’m here,” Ellen told her husband and Billy Sun. The three stood beside Rose’s enemy stove, speaking in lowered voices. “He never says a word. And those poor, poor babies, why, the boy especially is just barely hanging on. The doctor can’t even care for himself, let alone those children. What are we going to do about this, Nelson?” To her sorrow, Ellen Story had no children of her own at home, having endured the death of an infant daughter the previous winter. “I can’t stay here forever.”
    â€œHell if I know.” Story pulled on his beard. “He won’t talk to me, either. What do you think, Billy? How do the Crow handle such matters?”
    Billy said, “My uncle’s wife bore a dead child four days ago. Her breasts are full with no child to take from them. I know her well, and she would be pleased to mother these children. She is a good woman.”
    Story and his wife exchanged glances. The idea of a white child nursing at the breast of an Indian woman was troubling, but what choice did they have?
    â€œThe girl might make it on